Zappo

CONCEPT

Zappo is a remote control concept. It is a touch display with no buttons designed to make the life easier for viewers who need to interact with television.

While video-on-demand is increasing in popularity, its experience is still designed as adaptation of traditional broadcasting view, so we changed the approach and we designes Zappo with a VOD point of view but Zappo features are completely suitable for any kind of vision.

SELECT

People are used to watch videos several time during their daily life and they are used to stock videos using different services: movies and television series on DVR, playlist on Youtube, timeline on Vine etc…

Take care of all this videos can be hard and a video not immediately watched became a not watched at all video.

In Zappo this problem is solved in “my video” channel. It is a special channel, available in addition to television channels, that is a sort of feed aggregator where the viewer can find all his favorite videos from all the difference video services he follows.

Swipe left and right is all the viewer needs to change television channel, once selected the channel, the viewer can swipe up and down to scroll all the shows.

To avoid the user to focus on remote screen instead of television one, only two shows for each frame are visible in Zappo, so the player must choose only between the upper or the lower show.

SELECT - COLLABORATE

To watch television is usually a social activity: it is done on the sofa with family, friends, housemates etc…

This is why videos inside “my video” channel can be modified according with people that are in front of the screen.

The list can be expanded merging the videos from all the viewers or shrink it, for instance, to avoid to list something not suitable for a child.

VIEW

To look away from television and pay attention to the remote to interact with it is always annoying.

It is absurd also because a tool that should help the viewer, breaks his “television experience”.

This is why Zappo has no buttons in the “view” mode, and just gestures are used to manage main television features: swipe vertically to control volume, swipe horizontally to interact with video timeline, hold to pause the video, touch to add a tweet (see chat chapter).

CHAT

Tweeting during a television show is so common that tweets are used to count how succesful is a show.

Tweets are great to chat live, but when a show is viewed “on deman” the viewer is pushed out from the tweets flow.

When a tweet is published with Zappo, it is linked with the sequence on screen and, whenever someone of the “friends” watch the same sequence, the tweet is released keeping the chat “live”.

QUESTION AND ANSWER

Can I manage my profile?

Yes, you can in the option menu, where this kind of features will be available.

Can I access to all videos from my friends and use their subscriptions and their on demand purchases?

No, the video sarin function will be limited just to that videos you can access on your own.

How can I add friends?

Also this feature will be available in menu option.

Friends that share videos are the same that share tweets?

You decide it. Friends belong to circles and each circle have different behaviours.

How can Zappo release tweets at the right moment?

There are different solutions. Link the tweet to the video time is the easiest but it could not work when the viewer enters an on air show. A Shazam-like feature that allows to link the tweet to a sound clip could work always.